12 November 2015

Charles Hamilton Sorley,
a Scot from Aberdeen, was shot through the head and died instantly at
age 20, at the Battle of Loos, on Wednesday 13 October 1915. His body
was lost, but his kit bag was found and sent home to his family. They
found this poem inside it.

When You See Millionsof the Mouthless DeadCharles Hamilton Sorley (1895-1915)

When you see millions of the mouthless deadAcross your dreams in pale battalions go,Say not soft things as other men have said,That you'll remember. For you need not so.Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they knowIt is not curses heaped on each gashed head?Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto,"Yet many a better one has died before."Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should youPerceive one face that you loved heretofore,It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.Great death has made all his for evermore.

In 1918, largely by coincidence and random accident, the combatants
along the Western Front (France) agreed that the guns would fall silent at the
eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

==============

I found a poppy Tuesday night. No one was selling them -- distributing them for a vets charity -- around town, so for the 2nd time in my life as a veteran I wandered into the VFW hall, and the friendly barmaid had a bunch of them on the bar. I wore it on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. A couple of people noticed and knew what it meant. One thanked me for my service -- this Endless War's Hallmark Card for this Miserable Circumstance.But I like this holiday better than the other one, because Veterans Day / Remembrance Day / Armistice Day is more about the guys who came back pretty much okay.If you have male children, make sure they can type fast and well. If they have dual citizenship, Do Not Give Up either citizenship.

08 November 2015

I DEMAND THAT I AM GIVEN BACK THOSE 40 MINUTES I HAVE WASTED
ON THIS GODAWFUL PIECE OF UTTER SCHEISSDRECK AND I WANT THAT TIME BACK RIGHT
BLOODY FLAMING NOW !!!

Naturally after 24 hours I have forgotten most of what I have
seen. Bob /Pauline Keel Was Right. I think I only saw about 40 or 50 minutes of
it anyway and started doodling on the iPad.

This is an A List Movie ? Huh ? The 3D animations were
absolutely mondblowing and flawless, there were some nice scenes – the rest is
utterly forgettable.

Of all the characters Chriss Pratt (a comedian ? Seriously ?)
is somewhat likeable, the nerds at the control center were ok, the rest is –
forgettable.

Plot line ? Bloody hell, don’t get me started. What we have
here is a classic Monster Movie in the B Category that has more to do with It
Came From Outer Space, King Kong or Godzilla BUT NOT DINOSAURS ! Of course I
knew I was watching a sorta wanna-be SF movie, but if you construct you own
universe just make sure it does not collapse in on itself. That plot has more
holes in it that swiss cheese and I know bloody well what I am talking about
here – a chameleon “dinosaur” – in an amusement park. Who wants to see that ?
When I heard that I thought “oh good, it is going to break out of its cage and
cause death and destruction while being able to shape-shift. Brilliant idea,
mate ! You reckon park visitors would pay for a thing they can hardly spot ? But
since it can shape-shift we have the perfect scenery for some
action...”

Good SF, even unrealistic SF works because that
self-sustaining bubble has rules based on the logic of that bubble. This movie
has no logic, it is just popcorn trash and the most dissapointing thing is that
this is supposed to be an A list movie....

I mean I like popcorn movies, my generation was raised on
american movies like Indiana Jones, Back To The Future, Star Wars and all that.
But ya gotta draw the line somewhere....

The original Jurassic Park (based on a Michael Crichton book,
I believe) hat a decent plot, good actors playing believable charactars, it hat
dinosaurs, action, a few funny moments – and even a message, even if it was a
small one. And I can still remember this movie.

This kacke had none of that and if this is the current state
of Hollywood Popcorn Blockbuster Movies then I am utterly baffled. Neffe liked
it, but he’s 14 and you know how kids at that age are. Just you wait ‘till the
little bugger can clock stuff like Brazil, Blade Runner, Seven, The Godfather
etc. ! I have already lost him when it comes to mainstream music but I might
have a chance with doing something for his cineastic intellect before it is too
late.

Yet not all is lost. I hear The Martian is pretty good, and if
the movie is only 1/4 as cool as the book and they haven’t fucked it up too much
this one might be a treat....

P.

From: Robert Merkin

Sent: Saturday, November 7, 2015 9:54 PM

To: PatfromCH

Subject: Re: At the movies

Pauline Kael had a book about movies called Kiss
Kiss Bang Bang, which is what Italians call James Bond, Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang
Bang.

Jurassic World -- well, I told you, it was
Supercalliafragialistic Amaze-o-Scope 4D Popaphonic (tm) Popcorn Kiss Kiss Bang
Bang Roar Roar. All Phineas T. Barnum, the great showman who brought The Amazing
White Elephant to America. (A school -- well, not mate, we didn't like one
another -- but a school guy now owns the Barnum and Baily Circus. He has to
swear to the media a lot that he would never mistreat or do weird surgical
things to turn horses into unicorns. He doesn't do that anymore. And the tigers
and lions all have Luxury Erste Klasse air-conditioned cage and train
accomodations.)

These are wonderful movies to smoke hasheesh or take LSD
or drink absinthe to. And to watch with dates -- a couple of rented Jung
Madchen at the Nevada bordello. (Stay away from the convenience-store faux
viagra.)

And then, Ms. Kael said, you immediately forget all about it.
The movie is entirely consumable in the theater. No residue remains in your
brain.

"You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll kiss three bucks
goodbye!"

-- promo for "Hardware Wars"

As I said, there is a tragedy associated with this bag of
gobshite, and that is that Chris Pratt is an inspired W.C. Fields
Chaplin-class comic.

"Dying is easy. COMEDY is hard."

-- Edmund
Kean, Shakespearean actor

Chris is very much a Brain Comic, the
intellectual absurdities of existence are his special forte, but if you want him
to tumble down into a dark muddy hole and garbage pit on a cold night, he's
happy to do that, too. And do it as well as Fields (the world's finest juggler
ever) did. (Fields did it all while drunk, but I haven't heard what, if
anything, Chris Pratt uses/abuses.)

Great comics are often gifted musicians, or at
least have natural musical talents, because it's all in the rhythm and the
tempo.

Have you heard the world-shattering news? James
Bond shagged a 51-year-old woman! She's really -- uhhhh -- well, okay, not HOT,
but uhhh ... well, not too far Out Of Code, as Brits say in likening an older
woman to grocery store cheese in your refrigerator that is still safe to consume. I wonder what Bond
Girl No. 1, Ursi, thinks about this new surprise development in Kiss Kiss Bang
Bang World. Today Barbara Bach, another Bond Girl, was on TV in her first
comedy, Caveman, where she met and then married Ringo Starr. The whole thing is
Very Funny, and all the pretty young women are dressed in skimpy animal
skins.

SWMBO looks at some women on TV and mutters
"mutton dressed as lamb" -- like Angela Merkel dressing like a Japanese
schoolgirl to emphasize her attractive seductive youngness.

You laughed, you cried, you kissed how many
Swiss francs goodbye? Say hi to Neffe.

Bob

(SWMBO left me all alone this weekend! gtg,
identical twin redhead freckled cheerleaders Tiffani and Heather are waiting for
me in the hot tub.)

----- Original Message -----

From: "PatfromCH"

To: "Robert Merkin"

Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2015 2:28
PM

Subject: At the movies

Watching jurassic world with my nephew on bluray Oh dear what awful
gobshite.....

Lenny & Spike the runaway dropout teenage weasel and stoat who help out around Vleeptron and briefly ran the Zero-Friction Thrill & No I.D. Cheap Beer Park on the system's Rules-Lite Planet Hoon were supervising the Vleeptron e-Mail Spam & Malware filter -- we call it The Great Firewall of Vleeptron -- and after they left to get to a Fudge Tunnel concert at Club Drek, I found we had received this wholly unsolicited message:

Valencia90 and I are both in the Northern Hemisphere, as winter approaches. So this invitation sounds very inviting, and maybe even more stimulating than such hookups usually are as the United States of America and Russia seem, in two or three locales, to be toying with the idea of direct armed conflict. Both Russia and the USA have missiles armed with fission and fusion weapons, and Syria has brought back the long-gone but well-remembered Poison Gas Warfare.

Great and crappy world literature alike have found that when War Breaks Out, everybody's nipples get stiff and everybody gets a big erection, no Viagra necessary. You don't even have to use that herbal stiffener that they sell at Apu's convenience store on the Vegas Strip.Because we both know there's a very good chance this may be the last time we get to bang one another, or, for that matter, to bang anyone. The MoD may even permanently prohibit masturbation, or make it a lot harder than it used to be.

Valencia (who truly is 90) is very clearly a fur-clad Russian babe, but our analysts at the Vleeptron Security Agency suspect she's posing on a sidewalk in Queens or Brooklyn or maybe the Bronx. That's my old beloved Marlboro cigarette brand ad in the background. And the alphabet is all Roman, not Cyrillic.

No flies on the boffins at VSA, who lease office space in the Tri-Sky-Hi Towers in Ciudad Vleeptron. Valencia cannot keep her true location secret from Rumply Snrq-Bellvale and his Team for long.So if I decide to go for it, I may only have to take a 6-hour Amtrak train for our secluded rendezvous over borscht and vodka (not that French vodka, either, the Real Tovarich Brand stuff).I hope she can get her hands on a tin of Caspian caviar, too. Does she take credit cards? Or American dollars? Or The New Tumbling Ruble? Euros?Valencia's e-mail seems to be trying to inspire me to travel

4161 miles (6696 km) (3616 nautical miles)

to make this hookup happen.

What should I do? Please Leave A Comment.

"Of all our regrets, the coldest and
most empty are of temptations we have successfully
resisted."

-- James Branch
Cabell

("tell the rabble

it rhymes with Cabell")

******************

ADDENDUM 1.

I just noticed the dot br -- to get a little of the old in-out, I may have to get my fundijo to the Southern Hemisphere, maybe the Beach at Ipanema, or maybe Valencia is dancing at the SambaDrome with skin glitter.